Lewis Hamilton from McLaren team came out on top at the German Grand Prix as he outdid Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Mark Webber at the Nurburgring. This is Hamilton’s first grand prix win since China last April.
Sebastian Vettel was not only beaten to pole position by teammate Mark Webber, but for the first time this season, he was locked out of the front row entirely, as rival Lewis Hamilton qualified second. Vettel was relegated to third, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso beside him in fourth and Felipe Massa in fifth.
Nico Roberg from Mercedes GP team started sixth, McLaren’s Jenson Button seventh, Force India’s Adrian Sutil eighth, Renault’s Vitaly Petrov ninth and Mercedes-Benz’s’ hometown hero, Michael Schumacher, rounded out the top portion of the grid in tenth.
Lewis Hamilton succeeded to squeeze by Webber heading into that first tight right-hander to take the lead at the start.
During the race Force India’s Paul di Resta, collided with Nick Heidfeld as both spun out and dropped to the back of the grid. This incident was blamed on the Renault driver.
Fernando Alonso ran wide to let Vettel retake third. They would later switch on lap 8, but not before Schumacher passed Button as close battles unfolded between Hamilton and Webber up front and Massa and Rosberg a few positions behind them.
Also the drive-through penalty handed to Heidfeld for the di Resta incident hardly mattered, because the Renault driver’s race ended when he tried to pass Buemi on the outside only to be punted off into the gravel.
After the first round of pit stops were over, Massa got by Vettel and then both, along with the Mercedes duo of Rosberg and Schumacher, passed Petrov in a day that hardly shined for the Renault team. Schumacher then spun on lap 24, dropping two positions from ninth to eleventh.
Fernando Alonso, exiting the pit lane from his second stop, rejoined just ahead of Hamilton, who promptly overtook the Ferrari in the first set of corners. Unfortunately for Jenson Button its disappointing weekend ended with a hydraulics malfunction.
Rules are rules, so late in the race, the leaders still needed to put on their harder-compound tires to satisfy the regulations. Hamilton pitted on lap 52, Alonso on 54. Webber tried to stay out a few extra laps, finally swapping rubber on lap 57. To everyone’s astonishment, when Vettel closed in on Massa, the two drivers, went in on the last nail-biting lap. Vettel, due to a delay in the Ferrari pit box, slip by to take fourth place, the worst result for the defending champ so far this season.
This is Hamilton’s first grand prix win since China last April. Alonso followed his last win with a solid second-place finish. Red Bull considers Webber’s third place finish as its best result for the race as championship leader Sebastian Vettel took the fourth place. Behind Vettel and Massa, Sutil finished sixth, Rosberg and Schumacher seventh and eighth, Sauber’s Kobayashi ninth and Petrov ultimately squeezed out the final point in tenth.
The German Gran Prix’s results leave Vettel still firmly in the lead with 216 points to Webber’s 139, Hamilton’s 134 and Alonso’s 130. Red Bull retains a solid for the constructors’ title with 355 points to McLaren’s 243 and Ferrari’s 192. The circus crosses through Austria and into Hungary for the Magyar Grand Prix next weekend at the Hungaroring. Watch this space to see if Vettel can get his groove back or whether we’re looking at the start of a new world order.
Source: Autoblog
